I decided to start a journal/blog. My main reason behind it is I love training and I love talking about training so it makes sense. My timing is a bit off since I'm in the process of completing my third year at Uni and I'm doing a dissertation at the moment so really all my words and thoughts should be there but I figured this could be a little release for me.

Some days I'll write about my training some days I'll put my diet and macros on and other days I'll just talk about my thoughts and if nobody is interested then don't bloody read.

I decided today is going to be a low calorie day and a low carb day (big mistake).

So I wake up and eat 6 eggs (cooked as an omelette with Extra Virgin Olive Oil).

Then a few hours later pre workout I dosed up on caffeine and had a handful of almonds and a scoop of whey.

Back Squats6 sets of 5

The plan was to perform 10 sets but I began to feel dizzy and light headed as I was only having short breaks between sets and I think its just too intense to do with such low blood sugars. A very similar thing happened last week when I tried to do 3 sets of 10 Deadlifts without carbs, I had to buy a lucozade before carrying on. From now on I'm not training with zero carbs I may do cardio fasted but my weight sessions will have some form of carbs to be fueled on.

Due to my low blood sugars I switched to isolation just to try and keep my heart rate down.

Leg Extensions6 sets of 12

Lying Leg Curls2 x 121 x 102 x 8

Calf Raise Machine1 x 151 x 123 x 10

That concluded my leg session in about 50 minutes. Usually there would be much more in there and more compound exercises but after my experience last week when my blood sugars got low I was risking it this week. I won't be training with low blood sugars anymore it just kills the intensity so even on low carb days I'll be putting some sugar in prior to training.

Post workout shake50g Whey50g Dextrose

The rest of the day will be fairly low carb and my calories will be quite low today as I had a good feed yesterday where my calories were well over my energy expenditure today I'll go below my energy expenditure.

A low carb approach does take time to adjust to Damon , however once your body grows accustomed to the lack of fluctuation in blood sugar you will most likely find your energy levels are better than ever. On the downside I could easily just sleep my high carb weekends away with the subsequent rise and fluctuating blood sugar and insulin.

A low carb approach does take time to adjust to Damon , however once your body grows accustomed to the lack of fluctuation in blood sugar you will most likely find your energy levels are better than ever. On the downside I could easily just sleep my high carb weekends away with the subsequent rise and fluctuating blood sugar and insulin.

T.

Hey Turpin, thanks for the comment. I did notice you use a very low carb approach throughout the week and seem to train fine. As I say my muscles felt game they weren't the issue also my glycogen was fine since I had 300g+ carbs yesterday. It's just my liver glycogen and blood glucose it seems if my heart starts pounding my brain sends me light headed and dizzy and I begin to sweat a lot as though I'm going to pass out. It really ruins my performance so I think my future approach is to make sure my blood glucose is reasonably stable especially if I'm doing high volume work with big movements such as squats and deadlifts.

Great to see a journal from you buddy. Will watch with interest. How much was on the squat bar?

Hey Toby, glad your following mate. I thought it was about time I got more involved with the forum.I had 110kg on the bar ATG with 60 seconds rest between sets the muscles felt game I could have got the 10 sets as planned which would have been great 50 reps of 110kg I'd have been real happy with that but I just went completely light headed due to low blood sugars my next leg session will be under higher blood glucose levels for sure.

So then here we are Monday night and the first training day of the week. This is my third week of cutting for the summer and the weekend just gone was very messy one my worst of the year so far. It was a friends Birthday and it involved loads of Vodka (mostly with sugar free red bull), a McDonalds, Doner Kebab, and Pizza. It was horrendous and puts the 'cheat' in 'cheat day'. Only this was more of a cheat weekend and it was awful but nice to let the hair down.

So today I step on the scales and am amazed to find that I'm now 77.7kg compared to last weeks 78.2kg. Interesting really considering I had a massive blowout but the clean eating and carb cycling from the previous week seemed to still give me a bit of weightloss which is nice.

Anyway Back Session...

Pull Up Supine GripBW+50kg433

This is purely strength work and I have at least 3 minutes between sets, after this I aim for hypertrophy having 90 seconds or less between sets.

Snatch Grip Deadlift3 x 12This is the first time I added this exercise and it replaces high volume conventional deadlifts I performed this with no straps as I did with every exercise today so it happens. Make a good mind muscle connection to the Lats and you feel these all the way through the set. I'll perform these every other week from now on.

Dumbell Row1 x 141 x 101 x 8

Lat Pulldown1 x 151 x 101 x 8 (Dropset x 8 reps)

Pullover Machine1 x 121 x 121 x 8

TRX Inverted Row Neutral Grip30 seconds as many reps as poss followed by a 30 second break before repeating x 4 (burns like hell)

Unsure on my macros for the day I had pizza left over from Sunday night for breakfast but after the the only carbs I had were in my post workout dextrose and everything was fairly clean. Back to recording macros tomorrow and I intend to have a very clean week after that ridiculous blow out at the weekend.

I'll be following your progress through the season too buddy and wish you all the best. I'll hopefully see you on stage one day in one of the lightweight classes, doubt it will be this year though. For me I just want to take my bodyfat down for the summer whilst maintaining and if possible keep slowly developing at least in the strength department I doubt I'll dip much below 10% bf this year and will just enjoy the competitive season as a spectator.

My feeding plans this week are to be low carb today (I'll stick the percentages up later) almost zero carb tomorrow since tomorrow is my rest day I may even fast a little and will be in a deficit, then Thursday I'll go back to a surplus and carb up ready for Fridays leg session. I'm just taking things slowly at the moment and trying to prevent my metabolism from slowing. My weights been steadily coming down over the last couple of weeks so all is going well so far. I may just have a photoshoot this summer if I make decent condition give me something to work towards and build upon.

Barbell Bench Press115kg333These were strict powerlifting form (touching the chest and locking out) with at least 3 minutes rest between sets. The goal purely to get stronger at the movement.

Incline Dumbell Press40kg864Short rest periods below 90 seconds

BW Dips151211These were not locked out and they were very slow controlled reps with less than 60 seconds between sets. A great mind muscle connection and constant tension I really felt these in the pecs.

So its Thursday and today was Shoulder day it was also a re-feed day where I have carbed up somewhat. I do this mainly to prevent being in a deficit for too long causing my metabolism to slow and also since I want full glycogen stores for my leg session tomorrow.

Shoulders

Snatch from hang233

Military Press (Barbell)67.5kg222This is my first decrease in strength this year the last time I tried this weight was March 7th. I managed 4 reps that day and the time before that I also managed 4. The only thing that has changed since then is the elimination of d-aspartic acid from my supplements and obviously the calorie restriction. The one other difference is I performed the Snatch prior to this one where as I did less intense cleans the previous 2 times. I hope it was the Snatch that screwed me up time will tell.

Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press30kg866Fairly weak, shoulders are tiring by now. After my fear that maybe I have lost some strength I went back through my training records to see what happened last time I did this exercise with this weight. I actually did 7,5,5 on the 21st of Feb. Interestingly enough that day I did more on the barbell, strange don't really have an explanation for this but glad I got these reps out.

Following this workout I did a Bicep/Tricep circuit. I won't have chance to train them this week and as they are my stronger body parts I tend to give them less attention. I did TRX arm curls and extensions superset with dumbell curls and extensions but performed it as a circuit switching from Bis to Tris. Great pump.

When I'm bulking this would be the kind of food and macros I'd pursue. So it stands as my re-feed and metabolism booster for the time being which I re-visit every 3/4 days atm this may (have to) change as I get leaner.